RSS Newsfeeds

Welcome to Kuddle, the innovative, educational and safer photo sharing app designed for kids of all ages

Kuddle has been labelled by Tech Crunch ‘an Instagram with training wheels’. Our app empowers kids as young as 6 or 7 to explore the social media universe, whilst giving their parents peace of mind, knowing that exploration is happening in a safer, more secure, and sheltered digital environment.

For kids, Kuddle means the freedom to express their creativity, share their pictures and their point of view with friends and family, and be part of the social media community.

For parents, Kuddle means complete visibility and control over who and what their child is being exposed to online.

The result: kids can be kids, parents can be parents, and social media can be social media, just more kid-friendly than ever before!

Since we launched in August 2014, the Kuddle app has undergone continuous development and is now available on iOS, Android and Windows devices, which represents approximately 93% of the mobile market.

Kuddle has received an exceptional market and user response, resulting in a excellent start-up growth rate.

We are experiencing an exciting level of exponential growth in the access of new users. Based on current growth rates, we forecast Kuddle to be downloaded between 2.2 and 3 million times by February 2016

We have gained massive attention from the press with more than 50,000 press mentions in journals, tweets, blogs and news articles all over the world.

We have been featured in Tech Crunch, The New York Times, Parents Ware, MAAGG and Reuters to name a few, which has helped to increase our product and brand awareness worldwide.

We are continuously improving and developing the Kuddle App. The latest feature is the exciting ‘Groups’ function which allows users to join pre-approved groups and connect with others who have similar interests such as school groups, sports teams and art groups. The possibilities for Groups are endless and the Group Feature has been extremely well received having a major impact on our user growth rate. We have many more app developments scheduled some of which will include sound, video and voice-over abilities to name a few.

To learn more about our future plans and business model, please request access to the Business Plan side of this profile.

If you’re a parent with a child over the age of 6 or 7, chances are your child has asked you once or twice, if not more, to be allowed to join social media.

At first glance this might seem surprising as we tend to think of social media as a grown-up thing. The reality is kids are asking at increasingly younger ages to join social media sites and this can be a little disconcerting

Over the past few years, social media has transformed from a fun free-time activity for high-schoolers and college students into the most essential communication tool in our increasingly plugged-in, digital world. When kids and young teenagers see their parents, their older siblings, their role models, their friends and peers getting in on the social media fun, it only makes sense for them to want to be a part of it too.

Still, so many parents are worried about letting their child join the major social networking platforms available today (photo-sharing platforms in particular) and their concerns are justified. Platforms like Snapchat and Instagram are difficult to impossible for parents to monitor. Content posted in these sites can often be inappropriate for anyone under the age of 13 and they can be hotbeds for the kinds of online bullying that leave vulnerable children emotionally devastated, or worse.

It is only natural for parents to want to shield their kids from the more harmful elements of the Internet for as long as possible. This dilemma underscores the importance of educating children in the online digital world so they can develop the skills and habits to navigate social media safely before they’re thrown into the deep end in middle school or high school.

Kuddle is here to provide an online digital playground space for kids to do exactly that. Safer, more secure and social, Kuddle is the beginning of a new era of kid-friendly Internet fun.

At Kuddle we believe in the power of photos. We think kids should have the tools to be creative and share their positive photos with others, because fun and shareable adventures can happen at any age!

Spread the Positive You can brighten a friend’s entire day just by posting a picture of your smiling face. Want to show your friends your new puppy? Post a picture! Want to show your family what you’re doing today rather than just tell them? Post a picture! As long as what you’re posting is positive, all of your friends and family can see it.

Share with Friends You can search for and add your friends on Kuddle to share your beautiful pictures with even more people. Bring out your inner artist with our different sizes and colors of brushes that allow you to add cool details to your photo. And create a catchy title or description for your caption to further personalize your post.

Like and Be Liked When you see a picture you like that someone else posted, you can let them know by “liking” it with our “Kuddle K” icon. And your friends and family can do the same with any of your pictures.

Find New Friends (and Old Ones, Too!) The newest addition to the Kuddle universe is Kuddle GROUPS. Join Groups to discover new things, share what you love, find and connect with other people who love the same things you do! Sportstime, My Pet, Explorer, Artist, Foodelicious and Travels. We will continue to add new groups all the time! Got a great idea for a Kuddle Group? Share it with us!

Learn with Kodi Kuddle Kodi Kuddle is our mascot and every new Kuddle user’s first friend. Spreading good ethical values and online netiquette, Kodi is there to show everyone how to be responsible, knowledgeable and friendly while using social media. He also keeps users involved in his everyday life by posting his own pictures of what an active, curious, and adventurous life can offer.

We have great plans for Kodi, including “edutainment” games, movies, attending events like Burton Mountain Festival, and travel tours throughout various countries around the world. First off is the US!

Kuddle’s extensive parental supervision features are key in making Kuddle a safer environment for children. Our “parent mode” is available for kids under the age of 13 and allows you to monitor all of your child’s Kuddle activities. Here’s an overview of our most important and unique features:

Kuddle Access Children under the age of 13 will have to enter a parent’s email address when they create an account, allowing only the parent to activate the account before the child can gain “full sharing” access.

Posting Control Every time a child attempts to upload a picture, they are asked a few educational control questions (“Do you have permission to upload this?”, “Is this picture a message of positivity?”, etc.) before they can post it. When a picture is posted, parents will be notified with an email containing a copy of the shared photo and caption. If the content is inappropriate, the parent can easily remove it. Working alongside parents is our team of content moderators, who work hard to remove unsuitable content from the live stream.

Cyber Bullying Prevention Unlike Instagram, Kuddle does not have a comments section, so nobody can say anything negative about any of the pictures posted. Our “like” feature is set up so that every “like” is anonymous. Kids can see how many likes their picture gets, but cannot see who liked it. We hope this will increase the possibilities of creativity and appreciation for content, regardless of who shared it.

Privacy Users of Kuddle must accept friend requests in order for their content to be seen by them. Furthermore, we have disabled “geo-location” to protect them.

Responsibility Full names are visible on all accounts so that users will not be able to hide behind a “username,” therefore promoting a greater sense of responsibility for each picture they post.

Our vision is for Kuddle to be the world’s leading global brand committed to creating a safer, happier online world for kids and the Kuddle photo-sharing app is just the beginning. We’re setting out to create an entire kid-friendly internet brand, complete with online stores, search engines and more, that will provide kids with a secure online digital playground to explore the ins and outs of safer and responsible Internet use.

The KuddleStore will be an Amazon of sorts where Kuddle brand related items will be offered for sale. Cell phones and tablets, clothes, school accessories, bean bags, books, and others will all be available. Planned launch Q2 2015. A sneak-peak are avalible on store.kuddle.com

Under planning in cooperation with Microsoft we will be the first provider to launch innovative trendsetting child friendly phones and tablets. The Kuddle devices will have restrictions on apps, content, incoming and outgoing calls. They will also be pre-installed with the Kuddle app and sold on the Kuddle Store as well as through leading retailers

The idea for Kuddle came from our CEO, Ole Vidar Hestaas. When his 6-year-old son begged Ole to allow him to get his own Instagram account, Ole was hesitant, as any parent would be. He searched the market for a kid-friendly version, but could not find one that successfully fused creativity with safety. So, he created his own.

With CTO Christian Vebner and CCO Knut Taroy joining the venture, the new team of dads created a photo sharing app that they were confident in letting their children use. Now, with the successful launch of the Kuddle app, the Kuddle team is continuing to create a complete online digital playground in which kids can be creative and parents can know they are safe.

Ole Vidar Hestaas, CEO Ole is a seasoned serial entrepreneur and founder of Kuddle. Previous successful startups he’s headed include IndustriData, Statsjobb, MobileAxept and Tide Forsikring AS. He has also dabbled in the world of invention, holding several patents on some of his original ideas. With 4 children of his own, Ole saw a disturbing trend in the amount of online bullying that occurs with adolescent use of social media. Kuddle is his solution that he hopes will create a massive shift in the way children enter the world of social media.

Christian Vebner, CTO As Chief Technology Officer at Kuddle, Christian is responsible for making sure the Kuddle app is the best it can be. Before working at Kuddle, Christian was a part of several other startups, including Hano AS, a successful IT company that he helped build from scratch. With a strong overall sense of commercial awareness, Christian saw the benefits of Kuddle, realizing that we can’t stop our children from being a part of the social media revolution, but we can show them how to use it ethically.

Knut Taroy, CCO Knut is our Chief Creative Officer and the creative soul at the Kuddle office. He designs all of the visual elements at Kuddle – GUI, website, brand identity, Kodi, etc. Since 2006 he has participated in several startups in digital communication and retail. He has gained significant experience from developing digital projects and concepts for national and international companies. He has also co-founded a multi brand clothing store in Norway’s most high-end shopping mall. Kuddle is a project that he felt was most meaningful when teaming up with Christian and Ole. He too sees the negativity that can come with social media use among youngsters and is excited to be on the team that is changing things for the better.